As Israel prepares for a devastating ground offensive in the haven city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, it is incumbent on all supporters of a free Palestine to restate our unyielding solidarity and to redouble our efforts to support those whose very capacity to exist is being eroded on a daily basis.
In December 2023, SINK announced that for the foreseeable future, we would be donating 100% of profits from all of our sales to charities supporting the cause of Palestinian liberation. We considered this our duty as a magazine founded on radical, leftist principles. Since December, the crisis has become only more acute. In the space of just two months, a further 8,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — an average of 1,000 unnecessary deaths per week. The International Court of Justice, meanwhile, has given credence to those of us who fear that Israel’s actions constitute genocidal violence. Every day that Israel continues to reject calls for a ceasefire, human life and dignity in Gaza become ever more untenable.
If the Rafah campaign proceeds, as Israel as signalled that it will, then the worst is surely yet to come. Before this war, Rafah was a city of under 200,000 people. Now, it is home to 1.4 million living, breathing, enduring souls. Rafah is where people who were told to leave the city of Gaza, for their own safety, have sought to find some semblance of security for themselves and their families. It is difficult to articulate the peculiar cruelty of Israel invading a refugee camp created by its own actions. This cannot be allowed to stand.
At SINK, we now therefore reaffirm our support for Palestine’s liberation. All profits from our upcoming Issue 5 will be donated to pro-Palestinian charities. We understand the limits of our influence. We know that we cannot change the course of this war, not while Israel’s aiders and abettors continue to furnish unending military and moral support behind a veneer of mildly expressed disapproval. But as a magazine proudly of, by and for people on the margins, steeped in a radical commitment to human liberation, we would have no reason or right to exist if we did not play our small role now. The Labour Party’s consistent equivocation in the face of genocidal violence makes clear that we cannot defer to the respectable, suited gatekeepers of leftist movements to take action on our behalf.
Where do we stand? We stand with Palestine.